France, Nov. 21, 1917

Dearest Emma;-

Your letter of Nov. 15 reached me to day, it being the only letter I received in the mail. I wonder why it is that my letters seem to travel so much faster than yours. It nearly always takes six days for your letters to reach me and never less than 5. Some of mine have apparently got to you in 3 days – eg. the one I wrote you early one morning while I was waiting for Zero hour. That was the morning the Canadians took Passchendaele.

So you are not coming to France. Well I am pleased but at the same time it would have been nice for you to have seen some service over here. However had you come we might not have been able to see each other for months, and the date of our marriage must have been postponed almost indefinitely. Do you expect to remain in Bramshott or will you be transferred to some other Canadian Hospital in England? Just so soon as you are reasonably certain of your probable destination I shall start negotiating for the months leave and if there is any prospect of success I shall write to Col. Hewgill and ask him to be my advance agent. Will you be ready and willing? Could the thing be done on 14 days leave?

Am very sorry to know that Miss Reid has been ill and hope that she is better by the time this reaches you. Are you still running a temperature yourself? Please let me know for I am anxious about you.

It is raining to day and altogether the weather is very gloomy. This month however has been much better than was November either last year or the year before. We have had a lot of mist and fog but not a great deal of rain and scarcely any frost. When we are married we shall go down to the sunniest part of England, Devon or Cornwall. What do you think about it?

Had a long letter from my sister in law in Vancouver yesterday. She wrote to congratulate me on the event of my engagement. She expressed her pleasure that I was to marry a Canadian girl and was not about to take some one back from England. Margaret had mentioned you in one of her letters to Ethel (my sister in law).

Goodbye for present and please forgive my long lapses of silence. The letters would not have gone away even had I written them.

With best love

Yours

Harold W McGill